This year, the uprisings had us realizing that we can and should connect with others and share what we know. And because we’re quarantined we also realized we can do it all online, no campus needed. Los Angeles Print Shop Education classes are sliding scale online photography classes that respond to just this — higher-level photography learning with no barrier to entry. The ability to learn and communicate with art should not be barricaded by money. Thanks, but no thanks, higher education industrial complex.

The first of these classes is Photo Technique I — starting January 10, 2021. The class will cover: what the fuck is photography anyway, using your camera to make the image you mean to, editing & organizing in Lightroom, and advanced editing in Photoshop.

These classes are grounded in two foundational pillars: photography’s ability to depict concretely and abstractly. You will learn the technical elements needed to accurately create an image — basics of photography, camera settings, photo editing, exporting and printing — and, you will learn the visual language needed to give a photograph new meaning and communicate. This is the basis for learning to look at and create photographs critically, that respond to your own personal interests and concerns, and to create photographs that are about much more than what they show. It is this very thing — that photography is much more than only learning to use a camera, but a process of image making that converses with contemporary life — that makes photography so compelling, especially when you are inundated by the medium.

It is possible to give an object meaning and importance that it does not immediately communicate: art can do this — photography can do this. A photograph of a tree is also a photograph of the sound of birds in a tree.